Charlie Chaplins Own Story

by Charlie Chaplin

  a bit. My heart gave a terrible leap when I

  saw her face — gray, with a blue look about

  her lips. I ran to her, frightened, and

  helped her to a chair. She sat there quite

  still, not answering me at first, and then

  she said in a dull voice, "He's dead. He's

  dead. He was dead when I got there. It

  can't be true. He's dead."

  My father had died suddenly the night before.

  There was some confusion about the burial

  arrangements. My mother seemed dazed and there

  was no money. People came and talked with her

  and she did not seem to understand them, but

  it seemed that the music-hall people were

  making the arrangements, and then that some-

  body objected to that and undertook them —

  I gathered that it was my father's sister.

  ...

  Then one day my mother and I dressed very

  carefully and went to the funeral. It was a

  foggy cold day, late in autumn, with drops of

  rain falling slowly. At one end of the grave

  stood a thin angular woman with her lips

  pressed together tight, and my mother and I

  stood at the other. My mother held her head

  proudly and did not shed a tear, but her hand

  in mine was cold. There were several carriages

  and people from the music-halls with a few

  flowers. When the coffin was lowered into the

  grave the thin hard-looking woman dropped

  some flowers on it. My mother looked at her

  and she looked at my mother coldly. We had

  no flowers, but my mother took from my pocket

  a little handkerchief of hers which she had

  given me — a little handkerchief with an em-

  broidered border which I prized very much —

  and put it in my hand.

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  "You can put that in," she said, and I dropped

  it into the open grave and watched it flutter

  down. My heart was almost breaking with grief

  for my mother.

  Then we went back to our cold room alone, and

  my mother went at once at her sewing.

  We had no more talks or study, and she did

  not seem to hear when I read aloud, so after

  a time I stopped. She sat silently, all day,

  sewing at the blouses, and I hunted for errands

  in the streets, and made the stew, and tried to

  get her to eat some. She said she did not care

  to eat because her head ached, she would rather

  I had it.

  At this time I looked everywhere for work, but

  could not seem to find any. I was so small and

  thin that people thought I could not do it well.

  I picked up a few pennies here and there and

  learned the ways of the streets, and wished I

  were bigger and not so shabby, so that I might

  go on the stage. I was sure I could make money

  there.

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  Then one day I came home and found my mother

  lying on the floor beside her chair, gray and

  cold, with blue lips. I could not rouse her.

  I screamed on the staircase for the landlady,

  and she came up and we worked over my mother

  together. After a while the parish doctor came —

  a busy bustling little man. He pursed up his

  lips and shook his head. "Infirmary case!" he

  said briskly. "Looks bad!"

  A wagon came and they took my mother away,

  still gray and cold. She had not moved or

  spoken to me. When she had gone I sat at the

  top of the staircase in blank hopeless mis-

  ery, thinking of the grave in which they had

  buried my father, and that I would never see

  my mother again. After a while the landlady

  came up with a broom.

  "Well, well," she said crossly. "I 'ave my

  room to let again. It's a 'ard world. I'm a

  poor woman, you know; you can't stay 'ere."

  64

  "Yes, I know. I have other lodgings," I said

  importantly, so that she should not see how

  miserable I was. I went into the room with

  her and looked around. I had nothing to take

  away but a comb and a collar. I put them in

  my pocket and left.

  "When I was on the stairs the landlady called

  to me from the top.

  "You know I'd like to keep you 'ere if I

  could," she said.

  "Yes, I know. But I can look out for myself,"

  I said. I put my hands in my pockets and

  whistled to show her I needed no pity, and

  went out into the street.

  CHAPTER VIII

  In which I take lodgings in a barrel and find

  that I have invaded a home; learn something

  about crime ; and forget that I was to share

  in nefarious profits.

  IT WAS a cold wet evening in the beginning of

  winter and the rain struck chilly through my

  thin clothes as I walked, wondering where I

  could find shelter. Probably in America a

  homeless, hungry child of eleven would find

  friends, but in London I was only one of thou-

  sands as wretched as I. Such poverty is so

  common there that people are accustomed to it

  and pass by with their minds full of their own

  concerns.

  I wandered aimlessly about for a long time,

  watching the gas lamps flare feebly, one by

  one, and make long, glimmering marks on the

  wet pavements. I could not whistle any more,

  there was such an ache in my throat at the

  thought of my mother, and I was so miserable

  and forlorn. At last I found an overturned

  barrel with a little damp straw in it in an

  alley, and I curled up in it and lay there

  hearing the raindrops muffled, hollow, beating

  above me.

  66

  After a while I must have fallen into a dose,

  for I was awakened by something crawling into

  the barrel. I thought it was a dog and put out

  my hand, half afraid and half glad of the

  company. It was another boy.

  "Hello, 'ere!" he said. "Wot are you up to?

  This 'ere is my 'ome!"

  "I don't care, I'm here and I'm going to stay

  here," I said. "Say what you like about that!"

  "Ho, you are, are you? I'll punch your bloomin'

  'ead off first!" he answered.

  "I won't go, not for twenty punchings," I

  said doggedly. There was not room to fight

  in the barrel and I was sure he could not get

  me out, because I knew by the feel of his wet

  shoulder in the dark that he was smaller than I.

  ...

  " 'Ere's a pretty go, a man carn't 'ave 'is

  own 'ome!" lie said bitterly, after we had sat

  breathing bard for a minute. "Wot's yer

  name ?"

  I told him who I was and how I had come there

  and promised to leave in the morning. He was

  much interested in hearing that I had a mother

  and asked what she was like, assuming at once

  a condescending air. He had never had a mother,

  he said importantly ; he knew his way about,

  he did.

  67

  "You can stye 'ere if you like," he said

  grandly. " 'Ave you 'ad grub?"

/>   I told him no, that I had not been able to find

  anything to eat.

  " Hi know, the cats get to it first," he said.

  "But hi'ave my wye, hi'ave. 'Ere's 'arf a bun

  for yer." He put into my hand a damp bit of

  bread and I ate it gratefully while he talked.

  His name was Snooper, he said, and he could

  show me about — how to snatch purses and

  dodge the bobbies and have larks.

  At last we went to sleep, curled in the damp

  straw, with an understanding that the next

  day we should forage together for purses.

  Next morning I was awakened by a terrific

  noise, and crawling from the barrel found

  Snooper standing outside kicking it. He was

  a wizened, small child, not more than nine

  years old, wearing a ragged coat too small

  for him and a man's trousers torn off at the

  knee. He wore his cap on one side with a

  jaunty air and whistled, his hands in the

  rents in his coat.

  68

  We started off together to Covent Garden

  market, where he said we would find good pick-

  ings, and seeing the knowing cock of his eye

  and his gay manner, I too managed to whistle

  and walk with a swagger, though my heart was

  still heavy with missing my mother, and I was

  very hungry. It was early when we came to

  the market, but the place was crowded with

  farmers' wagons and horses and costers' carts.

  We wandered about and Snooper, with great

  enterprise, filled the front of his blouse with

  raw eggs, which we ate in a near-by alley.

  When we returned to the market it was begin-

  ning to fill with purchasers. Snooper, with his

  finger at his nose and a cock of his eye, pointed

  out one of them, a fat woman in black, carry-

  ing a big market basket on her arm and clutch-

  ing a fat leather purse.

  "When I glom the leather you hupset the heggs

  at 'er feet," he said to me in a hoarse

  whisper, and we edged closer to her through

  the crowd. She was standing before a vegetable

  stand with a bunch of herbs in her hand arguing

  with the farmer.

  69

  "Thrippence," said the farmer firmly.

  "Tuppence ha'penny, not a farthing more,"

  she said.. "It's robbery, that's wot it is." We

  edged closer.

  "Worth fourpence by rights," said the

  farmer. "Take 'em for thrippence or leave

  'em."

  "Tuppence ha'penny," she insisted. "They're

  stale. Tuppence ha' — ow!" Snooper had

  snatched her purse.

  With a yell she leaped after him, stumbled

  and fell in the crate of eggs. The farmer, rush-

  ing from behind his stand, overturned the

  pumpkins, which bounced among the crowd. There

  was great uproar. I fled.

  Diving under wagons and dodging among the

  horses and people, I had gone half-way down

  the big market when I encountered a perspiring,

  swearing farmer, who was trying to unload his

  wagon and hold his horse at the same time.

  The beast was plunging and rearing.

  "Hi, lad!" the farmer called to me. "Want

  a ha'penny? 'Old 'is bloomin' 'ead for me and

  I'll gi' you one."

  I gladly seized the halter, and a few minutes

  later I had the halfpenny and a carrot as well.

  I liked the market, with all its noise and bustle

  and the excitement of seeing new things, and

  while I wandered through the crowd munching

  my carrot I decided to stay there. Snooper had

  said he would wait for me at the barrel and

  divide the contents of the purse, but among all

  the interesting sights and sounds of the market

  I forgot that, and although I looked for him

  several days later, I never saw him again.

  70

  Before noon I had earned another ha'penny

  and an apple, only partly spoiled. I had not

  eaten an apple since the old days when I was

  very little and mother used to bring home treats

  to Sidney and me. The loneliness of my mother

  still lay at the bottom of my heart like a dull

  ache, and I determined to take the apple to her.

  The parish doctor who had taken her away had

  said I might be able to see her at the hospital

  that afternoon.

  I held the apple carefully all the long way

  through the London streets to the hospital. It

  was a big bare place, with very busy people

  coming and going, and for a long time I could

  not get anyone to tell me where my mother

  was. At last a woman all in black, with a wide,

  flaring white cap on her head, took my hand

  and led me past a great many beds with moan-

  ing people in them to the one where my mother

  lay.

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  They had cut away all her beautiful hair,

  and her small bare head looked strange upon

  the pillow. Her eyes were wide open and

  bright, but they frightened me, and though she

  was talking rapidly to herself, she did not

  say a word to me when I stood beside her and

  showed her the apple.

  "Mother, mother, see, I've brought you

  something," I said, but she only turned her

  head restlessly on the pillow.

  "One more. Are the buttonholes finished?

  Nine more to make the dozen, and then a dozen

  more, and that's a half-crown, and thread costs

  so much," she went on to herself.

  "What's the matter with my mother? Why don't

  she speak to me?" I asked the woman in the

  white cap.

  "It's the fever — she's out of her head, poor

  thing," the woman said.

  "Won't she ever be able to speak to me?" I

  asked her, and something in the way she shook

  her head and said she didn't know made me

  cold all over. Then she led me out again and

  I went back to Covent Garden market.

  72

  CHAPTER IX

  In which I trick a Covent Garden coster ;

  get glorious news from Sidney ; and make

  another sad trip to the hospital.

  I SLEPT that night in Covent Garden market,

  cuddled close to the back of a coster's donkey,

  which was warm, but caused me great alarm at

  intervals by wheezing loudly and making as if

  to turn over upon me. Then I scurried out of

  the straw and wandered about in the empty,

  echoing place, feeling very small in the vast

  dimness among the shadows, until the donkey

  was quiet again and I could creep back beside

  him.

  In the strange eery chill of the morning,

  while the gas lamps in the streets were still

  showing dimly through in the fog, the farmers

  began to come in with their wagons. I hurried

  about in the darkness of the market, asking

  each one if I might help him unload the

  vegetables or hold the horse for a halfpenny,

  or even for a carrot or raw potato. The horses

  were large, heavy-footed beasts and their

  broad, huge-muscled chests towered over m
e

  as I held the halters, while every toss of their

  heads lifted me from the floor. But I held on

  bravely, very hungry, thinking of the bun I

  might buy with a halfpenny, and indeed, before

  the market was light I had two halfpennies and

  a small assortment of vegetables.

  73

  I ate these, and then I went out into the

  dirty, cobbled streets about the market where

  the heavy vans were already beginning to

  rumble by and found an eating-house where,

  for my penny, I bought not only two buns, but

  a big mug of very hot coffee as well. As I sat

  on a stool drinking and taking bites from the

  buns, the waiter leaned his elbows on the

  counter and asked me where I had come from

  and who I was.

  "I am an actor," I told him, for this idea

  was always in the back of my mind. He laughed

  heartily at this, and I swallowed the rest of

  the coffee in a hurry, scalding my throat, for

  I resented his laughing and wished to get away.

  I put the bits of bun in my pocket and slipped

  down from the stool, but before I had reached

  the door the man came around the counter with

  another bun in his hand.

  74

  " 'Ere, me pore lad, tike this," he said kindly

  enough, putting the bun in my pocket. I let

  him do it, feeling confused and resentful, and

  ate the bun later, sitting on a box in the market,

  but I never went back to that eating-house again.

  I hated to be pitied.

  All the months I lived in Covent Garden

  market I was hungry. I ate eagerly every bit

  of spoiled fruit or partly decayed vegetable I

  could find, and sometimes the farmers, amused

  by my dancing for them while they were eat-

  ing, would give me crusts from their baskets,

  but my stomach was never satisfied. The

  people who came to Covent Garden market were

  poor, and halfpennies were scarce, though I

  hunted all day long for small jobs that I

  could do. Very early in the morning when the

  farmers first came in was the best time to find

  them, but sometimes days went by when all I

  could earn was raw vegetables.

  After a time, when the market people knew

  me, I had permission to sleep in one of the

  coster's carts, with a sack over me for warmth,

  but at first I curled up in the straw beside

  the donkeys. One of the donkeys in particular

  was quite sleek and fat. His owner took great

  pride in him, feeding him every day a large

  portion of carrots, and fondly swearing at him

  while he ate them. I used to look enviously at

  that donkey and finally I evolved a great plan.